[Fmpro] FMPRO Digest, Vol 39, Issue 3

[Sean Goble]

Hi Les,

 I have to respectfully disagree with some of your observations regarding 
SOCAN and PROs.  While yes, it could be argued that you may receive 
royalties faster as in quarterly instead of the once or twice a year we 
receive our royalty payments from foreign PROs, the accuracy and fee 
structure you're describing doesn't apply to SOCAN.  While most PROs do 
"double dip" your foreign earnings (ie. PRS collects, charges a fee, ASCAP 
distributes, charges a fee) SOCAN is one of a few, if not the only PRO 
that DOES NOT charge for foreign distribution.  Our operating fees are 
strictly from radio earnings.  So you are only getting hit with fees from 
the foreign society, not domestic if you are a SOCAN member. 

As far as accuracy goes, there may be some confusion as to how the systems 
work.  We submit our cuesheets into a database that is accessed by all 
other PROs to create foreign payments.  Unfortunately, at this point, some 
of the PROs may stumble in matching cuesheet to performance.  However, 
there is a back-up in that every quarter we receive unidentified 
performance lists from foreign PROs that we actually go through and spot 
check for shows that cue sheets have been submitted to us and we match 
them up, sending the reports back to the PRO and claiming the lost income 
on behalf of our member.

There are a couple pitfalls of many PROs that prevent you from getting 
earnings from your performances.  One is simply staffing.  Many smaller 
PROs just don't have the staff to process and record every performance in 
their country.  I know of at least one PROs that is three people and a 
computer, pretty much there simply as a symbolic gesture towards 
copyright.  Another is the reporting. While in the larger PROs we receive 
24/7 programming information for TV and use computer fingerprinting for 
radio performances, smaller PROs work on what is called a "survey".  We 
still use this method for smaller stations as well.  This is where they 
take a sample quarterly, or sometimes even biannually and use that as 
their templates for payment.  This is really good news if you land in the 
sample, not so good if you hit the week after the sample.

It should also be mentioned that legally you can't belong to more than one 
PRO at a time, only publishers can have multiple accounts, and more often 
than not having a PRO based in your home country (or within a reasonable 
distance) gives you a base that you can visit if you have questions as 
well as various perks that are provided by PROs such as mixers, magazines, 
contacts etc. 

 I can't speak on behalf of every PRO out there, but I know that SOCAN is 
designed as a member focussed organization and if you ever have any 
questions, need advice or think that you may not be getting paid for a 
performance, we do all we can to track down that performance or give you 
an answer.  We keep a toll-free line for any inquiries by any of our 
members.

I hope this helps.  If you have any questions, go ahead and post them and 
I'll try to answer as much as I can.

Cheers,
-Sean Goble
Membership, SOCAN


To: fmpro at nxport.com
Message-ID: <22E31861-1496-4091-BD8A-14D0F2AC803B at avradionet.com>
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Hi Josh,

Please excuse the cut n paste [c n p] below].......

Where do you have product, where do you expect to have product around 
the planet?

Please remember  PRO's receive, they do not collect outside their own 
domestic patch.


On Jul 2, 2008, at 8:50 AM, Josh Silver wrote:

> This is a pretty interesting conversation and has raised some
> curiosity on my part about using foreign PRO's to collect foreign
> royalties for me.
>
> I was until recently under the impression that the main reason to use
> a foreign PRO for foreign collections was to receive foreign royalties
> much faster than if I went through my domestic PRO (SOCAN) to collect
> my foreign royalties.  Now after reading the recent fmpro emails on
> this topic I am a little confused because I have been reading that
> using SACEM or GEMA for example to represent a composer for the
> territory of Europe would not only collect royalties faster, but also
> more accurately than my domestic PRO???  Am I understanding this
> correctly?

Yes you are !!!!!!!!!!!
>
> Previously I have decided against using a foreign PRO for this purpose
> because I was under the impression that the only real benefit was
> quicker royalty payments for international broadcasts.  So since the
> foreign PRO would end up getting a percentage of my royalties in
> exchange for the collections I decided not to do it since I don't mind
> waiting longer for the royalty payments.

They get the % at this time anyway, then you pay extra for SOCAN to 
admin the income.......... go direct !
>
> Now this topic has been opened up again for me as I did not know that
> using SACEM or GEMA would actually increase the accuracy of the
> European collections, I am considering going with SACEM or GEMA as my
> European reps.

You may be entitled to a pension if you sign up with GEMA and/or 
SACEM............ seriously........... join them all, get the 
benefits for all.

e.g.  Join SACEM for all French speaking markets,  SGAE for Spanish 
speaking markets,   PRS for the UK etc etc

I wish I had done so decades ago, but in those days PRS frowned on 
any 'move'.......... ok for publishers though ;-)

I joined ASCAP for the USA and it caused immense concern at 
PRS.............. equally my ASCAP publishing company had my 
'writers' product on air in the UK......... this was interesting, I 
was paid my writers share by PRS but not the publishing by 
ASCAP...............  until one compared statements [for and to 
them]......... then my publishing co and the money was 'found' ... 
clerical error !

Always have the means to cross check, it pays dividends, but really 
upsets staff.